Hi, I was wondering why they sell products to remove ammonia? If a tank had too much ammonia, wouldn't it be best to do water changes? I would rather use "fresh" water than use a chemical to get rid of ammonia but still contain the "dirty" water. Just wondering, The Doctor
Why Ammonia Conditioners?
- Thread starter Dr_Shakalu
- Start date
There is no reason. There are many reasons NOT to use the items, but ignorant people think "oh, I have ammonia, how do I take it out" instead of "how do I cycle my tank."
In fact, having ammonia removing items in your tank will starve BB and you'll be doing so much more work/spending so much more money than necessary.
Businesses prey on ignorance, and they sell whatever people will buy.
In fact, having ammonia removing items in your tank will starve BB and you'll be doing so much more work/spending so much more money than necessary.
Businesses prey on ignorance, and they sell whatever people will buy.
I tell customers that at the LFS often and they look at me like I just made a constitutional amendment. Once people get used to relying on sloppy quick fixes, they are hooked and it's hard to convince them to just fix the original problem.
Laticauda;4785213; said:
This is where a lot of people get it confused.
Most of the ammonia removal products that are contained in standalone and all in one dechlor/ ammonia removal products actually don't remove the ammonia. What they do it turn the ammonia NH3 into much less toxic ammonium NH4, which your fish can tolerate and will still be a food source the bb.
Prime detoxifies it, but AmQuel makes it unavailable to BB. That's always been the way it was explained to me. Also, Amquel deteriorates your pH as it's used, and can crash your pH, which just leads to other problems.rhodes_96;4785342; said:
But I believe he is talking about ammonia removal products such as the resins that absorb ammonia. This is just bad, all around, and definitely something that's only on the market for people who don't know better.
They have their place for certain situations... Like if you're in a wholesale position and you have a lot (read: hundreds) of tanks that you really can't keep cycled all the time, and you are only going to keep the fish for a week or so before you ship them back out, sometimes just throwing some ammonia absorbing product in the tank is the easiest method.
That can translate into a home hobbyist position if they only need to house some fish for a few days in a temporary tank.
That can translate into a home hobbyist position if they only need to house some fish for a few days in a temporary tank.
This is a great point. I would imagine you could also use this in a hospital/quarantine situation, if your main display tank's cycle crashed (due to nuking it, sanitizing it or what have you) and you plan on fish-less cycling your display, but still keeping your fish safe with water changes+ammonia removing resins. I'm sure it would still be pretty expensive to do!aclockworkorange;4786541; said:
True, true. If I had an LFS and ordered in a bunch of Koi, there's no way I'd expect the nitrifyers to catch up overnight. I'd certainly do extra water changes but also likely use some sort of ammonia-absorbing product as well.
I would use it temporarily if my stock level suddenly doubled and my bb colony needs time to multiply itself to handle the new ammo level.